J Street Georgia 2026 Annual Event

An Atlanta native, Scott and his wife, Ellen, raised two sons in the City where they are active members of The Temple. He was instrumental in transitioning the Zaban Shelter (now the Zaban Paradise Center) from a Temple-owned and managed homeless shelter into an independent, non-profit organization offering a range of social services to persons experiencing or at risk of homelessness. He served on Zaban’s initial Board of Directors for 8 years, including three as its Chair. Scott’s project finance law practice focuses on public-private partnerships and he recently helped open the Atlanta office of the national firm Saul Ewing.

Jeremy Ben-Ami is the President of J Street, bringing to the role both deep experience in American politics and government and a passionate commitment to the state of Israel. Ben-Ami’s family connection to Israel goes back 140 years to the first aliyah when his great-grandparents were among the first settlers in Petah Tikva. His grandparents were one of the founding families of Tel Aviv, and his father was an activist and leader in the Irgun, working for Israel’s independence and on the rescue of European Jews before and during World War II. His political resume includes serving in the mid-1990s as the Deputy Domestic Policy Advisor in the White House to President Bill Clinton and working on seven Presidential and numerous state and local campaigns including helping to manage a Mayoral campaign in New York City in 2001. For nearly three years in the late 90s, Jeremy lived in Israel, where he started a consulting firm working with Israeli non-profit organizations and politicians. Ben-Ami received a law degree from New York University and is a graduate of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Ilan Goldenberg is Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer at J Street. He is a seasoned foreign policy and national security expert with two decades of experience advising American leaders on the Middle East, US-Israel relations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran.During the October 7 Hamas attacks and the early months of the war in Gaza, he served as Special Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris on the Middle East. Subsequently, he became the National Director for Jewish Outreach and Policy Advisor on Harris’s 2024 Presidential campaign.Ilan previously served at the State Department as part of the small negotiating team supporting Secretary of State John Kerry’s initiative to conduct permanent status peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. At the Department of Defense, he was the Iran Team Chief, advising department leaders on all issues pertaining to Iran’s nuclear program and regional behavior.A prolific writer and commentator, Ilan has authored 15 reports on US policy in the Middle East when he served as the Director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. His writing has been featured in leading publications, including The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Politico, The Atlantic, and Haaretz. He has also appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and CBS. He is currently the author of the Dialogue and Dissonance Substack Newsletter.Born in Jerusalem to American parents who made Aliyah after meeting at Jewish summer camp, Ilan moved to New Jersey at age eight.

Tamar Ariel serves as J Street’s National Director of Engagement and Director for the Capital, South and Mountain West regions, helping lead the organization’s national engagement strategy while overseeing advocacy, fundraising, political engagement and Jewish communal relations across a broad regional portfolio. A nonprofit and organizational leader with nearly two decades of experience, Tamar first worked at J Street from 2011 to 2015 in several roles and returned in 2022. Between her tenures at J Street, she was a manager at Deloitte Consulting, where she advised government clients on large-scale business transformation and worked with Fortune 100 C-suite executives on leadership and executive development. Tamar holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a BA in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Economics from Brandeis University. Raised in an Israeli family, she moved to the United States as a child and now lives in the Washington, DC, suburbs with her young family.